Ask HN: Best way for an average developer to make it to Silicon Valley?

[conradistry]

I see a fair bit of advice for high performing new grads or senior developers but less about us more average developers. I am currently 28 years old and have worked as a developer for almost 2 years. I primarily deal with CRUD apps in the MS Stack. Azure, C#, jQuery and the like. Nothing too exciting technically speaking. But what kept me going is that I got the chance to deliver a well rounded variety of projects as well have an end to end involvement.

I live a few hours from Silicon Valley and always had an interest in getting a job there. I'm losing steam at my current job and I am ready for bigger challenges. I'm a Management Information Systems major and don't currently have the chops to ace the more difficult technical interviews. It seems like something like front end development would give me the best chance. I don't mind taking months off to prepare for a new role. What is a path that someone like me, a "business" leaning developer with no current specialty can take?

[newjobseeker]

You should seek out startups that have a different hiring process. My background is a 20 year backend Java developer, and I had a lot of challenges acing these 'algorithm' interviews as it's not what you do day to day as a developer. There is a bit of bias out there too wrt to languages even though they say there isn't, so my lack of Rails and Node was a problem. My success in landing a job came with a company who only focused their interviewing on what could be done on the job: you submit a project you've done and then discuss it, you go onsite for a day to work on a real project.